Edward Hasbrouck

Portions of this article are reprinted from Responsible Statecraft with the author’s permission. Of men in the U.S. who turned 18 in 2023, fewer than 40% signed up for the draft – down from more than 60% in 2020 before the start of the war in Ukraine. This eye-popping and previously undisclosed admission, as well … Continue reading “Military Draft Sign-Ups Plunge as War Fears Rise”

Doubling down on their recent war-game exercises and report on the (un)readiness of the U.S. to activate a military draft, Taren Sylvester and Katherine Kuzminski of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) have a new article in War on the Rocks, “Preparing for the Possibility of a Draft Without Panic,” laying out why … Continue reading “‘Realists’ Think We Need To Prepare for a Draft So We Can Win a War With China”

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Responsible Statecraft. How did this suddenly become the summer of “the draft”? There are a number of proposals in the annual defense policy bill (National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA) that deal with the subject. There is one to expand Selective Service registration to women. Another that would make Selective … Continue reading “Summer of the Draft: What Government and Think Tanks Are Planning and Why”

A new report released 18 June 2024 by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) provides a remarkably candid window into the flawed and dangerous thinking of military strategists who support continual “readiness” for an on-demand military draft, even while they claim — perhaps truthfully — not to prefer a draft, even as Plan … Continue reading “Playbook for a Military Draft”

Reprinted from Responsible Statecraft with the author’s permission. Two proposals that would radically alter the current system for registering Americans for a future draft were introduced recently in Congress without any hearings or debate. They raise practical issues about whether any draft today would even be possible. As part of this year’s National Defense Authorization … Continue reading “A War Draft Today Can’t Work. Let Us Count the Ways.”

In what could, and perhaps should, be the beginning of the end for draft registration, the former director of the Selective Service System told a Federal hearing last week that the program he helped create and once ran is no longer working, that the database of registrants has become so hopelessly incomplete and inaccurate that … Continue reading “Former Director of Selective Service Says It’s Time To End Draft Registration”